Of Honour and Loyalty
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: Maria is having trouble understanding her new husband 'Horrie', as much as she loves him she can't accept how he yearns for the sea. The day after he leaves her again for his ship her mother finds her daughter distraught, and tries to help her understand!


**Of Honour and Loyalty**

"Maria my girl," The young woman's mother soothed as she stepped into her daughter's and new son-in-law's bedroom the morning after Horatio's departure to sea, to find her sitting up, perched on the edge of the double bed, and sobbing into a linen handkerchief, "don't cry." She sighed as she sat down beside her daughter. She'd heard the newly married pair arguing only the morning before, and she now understood fully the reason for her daughter's upset. "You need to understand that this is not a game, your father often wouldn't tell me such stories of his life at sea either."

"No?" Maria asked, the young woman now looking up at her mother, her eyes red and bloodshot from silent hours spent trying to cry away the pain of her broken heart, and her cheeks soaked from bitter and salty tears.

Her mother shook her head. "One thing you have to understand is that it's often too painful! When they're away from their ship and the sea they think of nothing other it often seems, yet whilst on shore they're constantly trying to seek solace away from the trials of whatever war they might be fighting at the time. They lose friends Maria, are fighting for their own lives." She explained. "They have a huge responsibility weighing down on their shoulders, and moment could be their last, and with a wife back at home they have more than just themselves to consider. Your Horatio is a man on honour Maria. If he dies he still has you to think about, but he's also a man of loyalty, you'll see, he'll see you alright in the end!"

"But mother how can you be so sure…" Maria looked, uncomprehendingly up at her mother, deep into her watery blue eyes, and choked. "Sometimes I doubt his love for me at all… sometimes I feel he loves his ship more than he loves me."

"Your father was very much the same with me." Her mother explained. "Lord knows I never wanted for anything once he came along… except a man about to make me feel safe and protected from the chaos and mindless brutality which was going on out there, and a warm body to cuddle up to of a night time. He was overt the moon when I wrote to him and told him that I'd had you though. But I learnt early on not to expect too much… how can you expect a man whose already pledged himself to His Majesty's Navy and his allegiance to his ship to devote his whole self to you, so I settled for half his love, and accepted that I'd always take second place in his heart. I knew that he always loved me in his own way though."

"But I'm not sure that's enough for me mother…" Maria sobbed. "I dreamt of so much more."

"He asked you to marry him didn't he?" Her mother exclaimed with this. "He made an honest woman of you! Lord knows what you expected Maria, but you're getting above your station if you think you're any different from any of the other thousands of woman who've married a Navel man before you. Marriage isn't a walk in the park!"

"Yes, I know that, but…" Maria uttered falteringly.

"Even an absent husband is better than no husband at all." Her mother cut through her daughter's words however. "And you love him don't you?" She asked.

"Well, yes," Maria nodded, wiping her wet and swollen eyes with the linen hanky still clutched within her clenched palm. "I love him with all my heart!"

"Then take it from me, you're luckier than most with the good fortune to marry," Her mother nodded at this, "and Horatio's a decent man, he'll see you're alright, trust me… just learn not to expect too much of him."

With this she rose from the bed where she'd been sitting, perched, beside her daughter, and got to her feet. Maria seemed slightly calmer now, and appeared almost completely consoled if it hadn't been for a few stray tears and the upheavals of her chest.

"I know this must be difficult for you now," her mother sighed as she paused to address her daughter from the bedroom door, "marriages nearly always are, but hopefully given time you'll learn to understand."

With this she turned and left the room, leaving her daughter alone to contemplate her words for a while. She stood on the threshold of the bedroom for a moment, listening in, but on hearing no further sounds of her daughter's sobs began to make her way downstairs.

Finally Maria, now wiping the remainder of her tears from her tired and heavy eyes, on hearing her mother's footsteps on the staircase rose from the bed and made her way over to the window. Pulling the curtains back, she looked out to sea.


End file.
